The Weasley Who Lived
by Savasta 101
Summary: St Mungos Janus Thickey Ward, Christmas 1990. Ron Weasley is the Boy-Who-Lived, but he doesn't think his life could get much worse. Even Celestina Warbeck couldn't help fix the damage from the night Voldemort came. But Ron figured out that maybe with knitting and a whole lot of magic, life could be all right again.


Molly Weasley was knitting one very long sock. It was as orange as Ron's hair, whereas Molly's own had turned bright white, and it wafted like bleached candy-floss around her sunken face.

"Hello mum," he said quietly. She didn't reply, although her hands started shaking a little around her knitting needles. "I've got something for you." He put a new Celestina Warbeck record beneath the gramophone and 'A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love' began to play.

Molly hummed slightly in response, and shifted contentedly in her large, pink armchair. She mumbled something. "...toads and newts...does not a cauldron make... spell or not," but then, as always, she began to cry. Big, fat tears wobbled their way down her cheeks.

"George." she babbled brokenly. "What did you do with my George?" She kicked at Ron weakly, and started pulling at her white hair. "Monster." she yelled, and a nurse rushed in. "Hold her, will you." she said to Ron, so he grasped his mum's shoulders while the nurse tipped the calming drought down her throat. And then his mum's eyes went vacant again, as they always did, emptier than a ghost or a ghoul's.

"Merry Christmas, mum." said Ron, but only the music replied:

'Drink from my cauldron full of hot, strong love. It's all the magic you'll ever need!' Celestina promised in a jazzy chorus, but Ron wasn't interested in that kind of magic. He needed the healing kind, but the mediwizards didn't have it just yet. Maybe they never would.

"Thanks Hannah." he told the nurse, who smiled at him absently. "Merry Christmas, sweetie. Floo home safe."

"Will do."

Ron took a last look at the little room: red blankets, and gold pillows, and the Weasley family clock (glass still cracked, that no spell could fix). All the handles had fallen off. And mum shrunken in that pink armchair, with Hannah bustling around her.

He closed the door, and coughed to get his caseworker's attention. She jerked awake with slightly wild eyes, face framed by frizzing hair. "Are you finished already?" she asked startled. Ron nodded. Izzy began to collect the paperwork that surrounded her in the visitor's area with a curse. "Low pay...no sleep... should have just married a galleonaire."

"You alright Izzy?" asked Ron quietly, and she gave a slightly strained smile in response. "Oh yes, it's not you dear, bless you. It's bloody Fudge and his cuts. Now come along." And then Ron was being bustled towards the floo, Izzy barging through wizards with turkey legs, or whose ears had been blown off by vindictive crackers.

As they looked at one wizard, or rather the present which had eaten the wizard, Izzy started to a stop. "Oh Blooming Budgwudgies! That reminds me." And she opened her ever-expanding bag and started rummaging through: "No...not that. Now where did I... Aha. This is for you Ron." And she handed him a lumpy, rather crinkled package with a stain that looked suspiciously like firewhiskey. Ron unwrapped it slowly, a bit afraid of what may be inside. But it was just a lumpy jumper, maroon knit with a gold wool lightning bolt.

"It's the sort of thing your mum used to make before-well, you know. I thought you might like to have one."

Ron's throat closed up, and he looked at Izzy through rather wet eyes. This was better than being made Head Boy once he started Hogwarts, or getting onto the Quidditch team, or even better than if the Chudley Cannons won the League Cup.

"Thanks." said Ron thickly, as he pulled the jumper on.

"That's all right dear." said Izzy with a smile, and then she was hurrying off to her next case (some boy called Neville Longbottom had been dropped into the Atlantic Ocean by his great-uncle), so Ron sat in St Mungos on his own for a while.

He sat there so long that a nurse called Lily Potter came by, to check he was alright, and Ron shakily nodded in reply. "This jumper's like the s-sort of thing my m-um used t' make." and then he burst into tears. Mrs Potter drew him into a hug, and she smelled of roses, and apple pie, and faintly of the sort of exploding pranks you might find in the Prongs and Padfoot joke shop.

"Do you have anywhere to go for Christmas, Ron?" she asked him once his sobs had subsided, and he'd noisily blown his nose. "Not really, no." mumbled Ron, as he drew another tissue.

"Well," said Mrs Potter slowly. "I've got a bit of a problem, because Sirius cancelled at the last minute to go and snog Amelia Bones at the Ministry Christmas party, and it's Remus' time of the month... so I've made far too much food for just me, James and Harry. Do you think you could help me?"

"What?" asked Ron intelligently.

"Well," said Mrs Potter slowly. "I suppose what I meant to say is, you can come and spend Christmas with us, if you'd like."

The tips of Ron's ears went violently pink. "That's very kind but I don't need charity..."

"Oh no." said Mrs Potter quickly. "Nothing like that. If anything, you'd be doing me a favour. So, what do you say?"

"Okay." said Ron, before he could change his mind, although he still felt terribly awkward right up until he met Mrs Potter's son Harry. Although Harry was a Puddlemere United fan, Ron thought he might be able to put up with him. And he could definitely put up with more of Mrs Potter's cooking...

Far away, in a little St Mungos room, Molly Weasley felt inexplicably happy.


End file.
